Matheryn Naovaratpong, 2, has been cryogenically frozen by her parents in an attempt to revive her once medical advances permit. The frozen toddler was taken off life support due to a terminal tumor.

A Thailand native, Matheryn was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer during April of 2014. Unfortunately, Naovaratpong was taken off life support this past January due to the rapid pace of the cancerous tumor within her.

As small as the toddler is, it’s reported that — after being admitted into a Bangkok hospital — exams revealed that she had an 11-centimeter tumor in the left hemisphere of her brain, says Motherboard.

According to Daily Mail, the source mentions that the toddler wasn’t to survive long due to the lifespan of the disease.

“Doctors diagnosed her with ependymoblastoma, a rare form of brain cancer that afflicts the very young. The outlook was bleak from the start – the disease has a five-year survival rate of 30 per cent. To make matters worse, Matheryn – known to her family as Einz – had fallen into a coma. After a months of intensive treatment, including 12 rounds of brain surgery, 20 chemotherapy treatments, and 20 radiation therapy sessions, it became clear there was little more doctors could do.”

After Naovaratpong’s first surgery, the doctor told Matheryn’s parents that she would probably never wake up and that she should be taken off life support. However, Matheryn proved the doctor wrong by waking two weeks thereafter. Naovaratpong’s father told Motherboard they decided then that they were going to continue to fight.

“In two weeks, Einz woke up and regained her 2 years’ consciousness, she responded to stimulation, and surprised everyone. Einz represents the worth of Life. We decided to fight against this cancer. We may not beat it, but her life can lead to a further step of mankind to overcome cancer in the future.

“We noticed a power struggling for life in her beautiful round eyes. Finally, Einz was able to stand up on her feet again and could see with both eyes, as if she had survived from brain cancer. Couldn’t help wishing she could be back to her normal childhood even with only a single right brain.”

However, eventually the cancer overtook Matheryn’s brain and paralyzed her facial muscles. At that point, the parents decided to take Naovaratpong off life support and have her body cryogenically frozen by a firm in Arizona called Alcor Life Extension Foundation.

Martheryn’s father said, “Her body has been cryopreserved in Arizona awaiting coming technology.”

"Prior to her, the youngest we had done was a 21-year-old female," said Aaron Drake, the Medical Response Director at ​the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. "It ranges all the way up to 102, the oldest person we’ve preserved."

Alcor is one of ​the largest organizations that practices cryonics, the act of preserving humans and mammals in a freezing “biostasis” for later resuscitation. Alcor’s chief mission objectives are as follows: “Maintain the current patients in biostasis. Place current and future members into biostasis (when and if needed). Eventually restore to health and reintegrate into society all patients in Alcor's care.” For a fee, Alcor claims to be able to preserve the bodies that have deteriorated beyond modern medicine’s ability to help, until the day that science and biotech might improve enough to restore them.

Over the years, Alcor’s physicians and technicians have performed over 130 cryopreservations. Matheryn is their latest patient.

As a whole, the field of cryonics has been undergoing something of a renaissance. In the last decade, an open letter declaring cryonics “a legitimate science-based endeavor” has collected 63 signatures from doctors and researchers, the practice has become a core plank of the transhumanist movement, and its key players have crept steadily closer to the mainstream spotlight. Cryonics has earned high-profile supporters; baseball legend Ted Williams was famously frozen by Alcor.

In the process, the company has contended with accusations of impropriety—in an exposé book and an interview with ABC, an ex-Alcor employee claimed that the company used a chisel and a hammer to remove one patient’s head, and that it may have administered a lethal drug dose to a still-living member. Alcor denies the allegations, and filed a lawsuit against the employee.

The major cryonics organizations are still based solely in the US (the ​Cryonics Institute, for instance, is probably Alcor’s largest “competitor”). Besides Alcor’s UK chapter, the only other serious international operation is a fledgling Russian outfit, KrioRus. But due to renewed interest and the expanding reach of social media, word has spread far abroad.

“The family learned about Alcor on the internet,” Marji Klima, a spokesperson for Alcor told me. “They were both doctors. After they did 11 surgeries, when they realized that she wasn’t going to be able to pull through, they contacted us.”

Alcor agreed to accept Matheryn as a patient, and enrolled her as a member. The initial plan was to fly Einz to the United States while she was still alive, so Alcor's team could perform the procedure domestically. That procedure is complex and highly invasive; the BBC calls it “intense.”